THE MÖNCHENGLADBACH BOXES - ARTISTS’ BOOKS AND EDITIONS FROM THE SERRALVES COLLECTION

from 08 DEC 2017 to 10 FEB 2018

The role of the museum was radically transformed in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of renewed conceptions of art, in particular unprecedented approaches to designing and presenting exhibitions and thinking about accompanying pub¬lications. In this context, the exhibition catalogue often became a vehicle for the production of original artist’s multiples that constituted works of art in their own right. The catalogue ceased to serve as a form of accompanying docu¬mentation and became an extension or supplement to the exhibition where the publication is not about the work, but the work itself. Artist’s multiples and books thus became a fundamental tool for the long cherished desire of democratization of works of art, allowing the public to gain access to a work without having to spend significant amounts of money. This exhi¬bition presents an ambitious and success¬ful forerunner of this phenomenon: the Mönchengladbach Boxes.

Mönchengladbach is a small German town, on the border between Germany and the Netherlands. It became well-known in the contemporary art world after the director of the Städtisches Museum Mönchengladbach developed an influential exhibition programme that played a decisive role in under¬standing the art produced in the 1960s and 1970s accompanied by 'catalogues' that epitomized the way in which artists revolutionized the format, role, and reach of such publications.

Thirty-three "catalogues” were produced between 1967 and 1978. The Mönchengladbach Boxes currently occupy a prominent place in the collections of international museums, including the Serralves Collection of Artists’ Books and Editions.